Comfort Women

After Japan agreed to pay $8.3 million to a South Korean foundation that aids comfort women, a handful of Filipina survivors want that same recognition. But they also refuse to give up their freedom to keep telling their stories.

By:Tessa Morris-Suzuki | September 29, 2014

Journalists, historians and publishers who try to tell the story of the Korean “comfort women” are being fiercely attacked while Japanese leaders deny the forcible recruitment of women to serve its army as sex slaves during World War II.

Other victims from Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia and East Timor were also forced into sexual slavery. Sometimes women were required to provide sexual service, which could be defined as rape, for up to 50 soldiers per day.

An offensive comment by the mayor of Osaka has brought the issue of comfort women back to the surface. A survivors’ group in the Philippines keeps the women’s stories alive and is planning a rally to coincide with President Aquino’s State of the Nation address.

Japanese officials are trying to remove a small monument to Korean “comfort women” in New Jersey. Rochelle Saidel says these and other women violated by war are still being denied official recognition.

A new Tokyo museum presses the cause of the “comfort women” of World War II who were used as sex slaves by the Imperial Army. On Friday, Amnesty International renewed appeals to compensate the women and for Japan to issue them a fuller apology.

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